UC Faculty Call for Reinstating ACT/SAT Requirements

In May, more than 600 University of California (UC) faculty members, including five Nobel Laureates and seven of the nine mathematics department heads, made headlines by signing a formal letter urging UC leaders to reinstate ACT/SAT requirements for STEM applicants. This was quickly followed by a second letter signed by UC faculty members in humanities and social science departments endorsing the efforts of their STEM colleagues and asserting that the verbal sections of the ACT/SAT should also be required for all undergraduate applicants.

To date, over 3,000 of the 26,000 UC faculty members have signed one of these two letters, prompting UC officials to announce that they will launch a yearlong study to determine if admission policy changes should be made.

Since the COVID pandemic forced many universities to suspend ACT/SAT admissions requirements, there has been a steady stream of universities rescinding their test optional policies as internal studies and reviews continue to validate the value of standardized testing. Now, all eight Ivy League schools require applicants to submit ACT/SAT scores, with dozens of other schools following suit. For a full list of schools that require ACT/SAT scores, check out the Common Data Set analysis available on our website.

The University of California school system, which includes 9 undergraduate campuses, went permanently test optional in 2020, one of the few school systems to make such a declaration. However, as stated in their open letter, UC STEM professors say that over the past five years they have seen a dramatic increase in the number of incoming students that lack basic math fluency, forcing instructors to reteach middle-school-level material in college STEM courses.

“Current admissions practices do not provide a sufficiently reliable check on mathematical readiness for STEM majors. Over the past five years, we have seen a widening divergence in preparation levels within the same classroom.”

Data supports these concerns about post-pandemic math readiness in California, where only about 30.5% of 11th graders meet or exceed math standards. A UC San Diego report found that between 2020-2025, of the incoming first-year students whose math skills tested below high school level, 70% actually fell below middle school levels.

UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova, who teaches introductory calculus, puts a finer point on it. “We are not talking about derivatives, we are talking about simple algebra skills that the students don’t have anymore—not all of them, but a large enough portion that you have to stop a lecture and explain how to add fractions.”

Faculty argue that a key purpose of the admissions process is to ensure that accepted students have the prerequisite skills to handle the course load. Without the use of ACT/SAT scores, which provide a standardized measurement of student skill mastery when compared to factors like class rank or GPA, whose meanings can vary depending on the rigor of a particular high school, UC admissions haven’t been able to properly vet student capabilities.

Almost every university that has reinstated ACT/SAT requirements has gone out of their way to acknowledge the importance of admissions factors like class rank, GPA, recommendation letters, personal essays or statements, high school courseload, AP scores, and extracurriculars, noting that reinstating ACT/SAT score requirements simply provides admissions with an additional, but insightful, metric to weigh alongside the others.

The call by non-STEM faculty to reinstate ACT/SAT score requirements may come as a surprise, as critics of standardized tests have long questioned the tests’ ability to evaluate long-form reading comprehension and analysis. However, this demand by UC faculty reflects a new concern that all higher education admissions departments will have to grapple with: the rise and prevalence of AI.

“As artificial intelligence becomes more capable, it is arguably more important than ever for students to be able to think through and compose sound arguments on their own, to comprehend the texts they read, and to recognize weaknesses in the arguments of those texts. The growing use of AI also makes essays a less reliable indicator of these abilities.”

Ironically, while the ACT and SAT used to receive heavy criticism about the standardization of their tests, standardization may now be the strongest argument for why they should once again be required of college applicants.

For the University of California system, it remains to be seen whether leaders will choose to address the concerns of their faculty and institute any changes to their admissions policy. Academic Approach will continue to keep you updated as more information becomes available!